After the Butte-aux-Loups, the ridge becomes flatter, the forest spreads out and the road, now freer, winds among the trees, runs from one slope to the other, avoids the big roots, passes round the inequalities of the ground and, at times, disappears from sight under a bed of dead leaves. But the moon had come out again and Morestal walked straight in front of him, without hesitation. He knew the frontier so well! He could have followed it with his eyes closed, in the dusk of the darkest night! At one place, there was a branch that blocked the way; at another, there was the trunk of an old oak which sounded hollow when he hit it with his stick. And he announced the branch before he came to it; and he struck at the old oak. His uneasiness, which began to seem unreasonable, was dispelled. Consulting his watch again, he hurried his steps, so as to reach home by the time which he had said. But suddenly he stopped. He thought he saw a shadow hiding, thirty or forty yards away from him: "Did you see?" he whispered. "Yes ... I saw...." And, all at once, there came a shrill, strident whistle, apparently from the very place where the shadow had vanished. "Don't move," said Jorance. They waited, their hearts tense with the anguish of what was coming. A minute passed and more minutes; and then there was a sound of footsteps, below them, on the German side, the sound of a man hurrying.... Morestal thought of the precipitous hill which he had described to Dourlowski as the way up to the frontier from the Albern Woods, by the Cold Spring, the Fontaine-Froide. In all certainty, somebody was scaling the upper portion of that precipice, clinging on to the branches and dragging himself along the pebbles. "A deserter!" whispered Jorance. "No nonsense now!" But Morestal pushed him away and began to run to where the two roads crossed. At the very moment when he reached the spot, a man appeared, all frenzied and out of breath, and stammered, in French: "Save me!... I've been given away!... I'm frightened!..." Morestal seized hold of him and flung him off the road: "Run!... Look sharp!... Straight ahead of you!" There was the report of a rifle. The man staggered, with a moan; but he was evidently only wounded, for, after a few seconds, he drew himself up and made off through the woods. A chase ensued forthwith. Four or five Germans crossed the frontier and set off in pursuit of the fugitive, swearing as they went, while their comrades, forming the greater number, turned towards Morestal. Jorance took him round the waist and compelled him to recoil: "This way," he said, "over there.... They won't dare ..." They returned in the direction of the Butte-aux-Loups, but were at once caught up: "Halt!" commanded a rough voice. "I arrest you.... You are accomplices.... I arrest you." "We are in France," retorted Jorance, facing his aggressors. A hand fell on his shoulder: "We'll see about that.... We'll see about that.... You're coming with us."